Faces: Federico García Lorca

As I recently travelled through Spain (especially Andalusia) I kept wondering if we'd passed the unknown grave of the great poet who'd been assassinated for any one of a number of 'crimes' against the state: homosexuality, support of the Popular Front, a privileged upbringing. I also wondered if clues could be whispered even to the tourist.

If Lorca despised the tourist, it didn't seem obvious to me.

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"As Lorca lay dying"

Write 'storm' on the towers, and don't choose

  clear pools over rain ah camioneros,

never, never!

   Mine's a ruined casa low in the highway,

          a yard's wild overgrowth;

 tiles after the heat spill over me at times like ivy.

   Language betrays

  If you sequester groves under the netting

(Sant Déu!), make space deep for Moroccan suns,

                                                             at least

     Palms look rusty this side of white-graped mountains

  where I'm led, & the farmers mean

of course, to make lusty parcelas feel the jagged teeth, too. Again,

  gardens on the coast—all a mirage

                                                                         Sultan

  of god recedes from where I lean

Between steppes and mounds, steadying to the passes or

                                                white-washed tombs

          I can be found

Storm! storm! Olivo of desire or

  piscinas: take paradise as it comes, real or not

Or if not, bust the dams and shoot at the devil yourself—

  Sierras thru the heat is

nearer to me!, with clouds the odd relief.        Three

  shades, greenest of the date, one ficus green, & that

of dry villages, and then the hills, again—again, all illusion!

  But take each as it comes

One churchtower, two separate at the bridge to find me

  but learn to doubt them, too

  enlarge their hate beyond words

I know the mists will enclose, & the white coast

  in a dream                                                  Look,

  African winds make an olympus of almost nothing,

   and springs between boulders

   trickling to my feet